Catalog
500 Won
| Issuer | Bank of Korea |
|---|---|
| Year | 1962-1967 |
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| Value | 500 Won |
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| Obverse description | A vignette at left centre presents Sungnyemun (Namdaemun), the historic South Gate of Seoul, rendered in fine intaglio line work against a lightly shaded landscape background. To the right, the denomination 오백원 appears in large Korean script over a guilloche underprint with a floral rosette motif, accompanied by a circular red seal of the Bank of Korea. The border is composed of a repetitive geometric guilloche frame, with the numeral 500 at lower left and the Korean legend at upper right. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | THE BANK OF KOREA 500 WON |
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| Comments |
South Korea's early post-war note issues were contracted to De La Rue in London largely because domestic printing infrastructure capable of handling intaglio security work simply did not exist yet. This 500 Won belongs to a series issued during a particularly volatile period — the 1962 currency reform, pushed through by the military government of Park Chung-hee, redenominated the hwan at a 10:1 ratio and reintroduced the won as the national unit. The political motive was partly economic stabilization, partly an assertion of the new regime's authority over monetary affairs.
High-denomination notes from this short series are noticeably scarcer in circulated grades, reflecting both the note's purchasing power at the time and the rapid economic changes that led to new series by the late 1960s.